


fluffer

by prncesselene



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - New Girl Fusion, Ben is Nick, Cece is Finn, F/M, Inspired by S2E3, Poe and Rose are a fusion of Schmidt and Winston, Rey is Jess, VERY much applies here, also this is slightly angstier than the show, because again we are working towards endgame here and now not general development, because they... are so dumb, i tried my best to navigate that right!!!!! ahhh, idiots to lovers, so uh, the concept of this without the comedy of new girl can get a bit slut shamey, yea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27772612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prncesselene/pseuds/prncesselene
Summary: Ben and Rey find themselves in a relationship-without-benefits.And that would be fine, really. Itwould— if Ben wasn't hopelessly in love with her.Inspired by Season 2, Episode 3 of New Girl
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 7
Kudos: 101
Collections: Who's that ship? It's Reylo!





	fluffer

Ben had barely settled himself into bed for the night, chucking off his sweatpants and throwing the plush comforter over his chest, when someone knocked on the door to his bedroom. Loudly.

If it were anyone else, Ben would have turned his face into the pillow, shouted more than a few delicately chosen curse words at whichever roommate had thought it necessary to bother his sleep, and ignored them until they went away.

(Neither Poe nor Rose really did that, though, because by now they knew Ben well enough not to.)

But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Rey.

He didn’t bother putting a shirt on, nor did he think to put his sweatpants back on — a grave error he only fully realized the weight of when he finally _did_ open the door to find Rey, her brown hair mussed and silk sleep tank delicately hanging off of one shoulder. His mouth went dry at the sight of her bare skin, freshly clean and smelling faintly of lilies, his chest — and boxers — tightening. He closed the door just slightly.

She smiled up at him, her hazel eyes bright. Cheerful. Extremely friendly. “Wanna watch a movie?”

Being Rey’s closest roommate meant a lot of things.

It meant, first and foremost, that if there was someone in the loft she was going to choose to hang out with willingly, it would probably be Ben.

Rose and Poe were fine roommates in the grand scheme of things, really. But ever since Rose had started dating Rey’s best friend Finn, they were too consumed with each other to notice much else, and Poe spent as many days outside of the apartment as he spent bringing others over.

Ben, on the other hand, had a penchant for brooding and solitude, which Rey took to quickly and effectively.

It also meant that, by now, he knew her well enough to anticipate why and how she did certain things — and right now, a few hours after her most recent hook up, Rey was likely looking for some platonic company to get her through the night.

So, Ben and Rey had become sort of a packaged deal, as far as the shared-living-group-dynamics of apartment 4D went.

And that would have been fine, really. It truly would have.

Ben would have zero reason to complain about being Rey’s friend — about having her confide in him about her past, and feeling invited to confide in her about his, and sharing lunches and errands and quality time together — if it wasn’t for the fact that he was _hopelessly in love with her._

If he were honest with himself — and he usually wasn’t — he had fallen deeply and quickly the very same day Rey moved in, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and all too eager to snag the last available room in their loft, bringing pastel colored kitchenware, an absurd amount of bobby pins, and a distinct, blinding sort of sunlight and optimism with her. A unique brand of positivity and warmth that Ben had flocked to, embarrassingly enough, like a moth to light.

But she'd just left a relationship that ended badly, and in the months that Rey had lived with them she hadn't seemed ready to jump into a new one. 

So, he couldn’t pursue a relationship with Rey, and he couldn’t make things awkward by letting her know how he felt. So he didn’t do either.

Which, finally, meant that Ben was fucked. Royally.

Because if it hadn’t already — and he was nearly sure it had, if the crackly, achy feeling he got in his chest everytime he looked at her was any indication — being Rey’s friend and roommate would end up killing him.

Watching the hopeful quirk of Rey’s eyebrow, though, he couldn’t find any reason to deny her request.

Instead, he smiled.

He smiled, even though he was painfully aware of the fact that she’d sent her latest hook up home an hour ago.

Even though he knew that all she’d ever want from him was this, and that he didn’t know how to make it enough, and he was on a high speed train headed straight towards disaster for both of them, him and his broken heart and Rey abandoned, alone. Again.

Despite all of it, he smiled. “Sure. Dirty Dancing again?”

She nodded, eyes bright. “I’ll go make us some popcorn.”

* * *

The first time it happened, Ben hadn’t expected it.

“You don’t _actually_ think aliens exist, do you? Not the life-in-any-possible-form kind of way, but like, actual civilizations? Seriously?”

Rey furrowed her brows just as she was about to take a bite of her apple. They were at Panera, a lunch spot Ben thought was an insult to all café food ever made in the history of humanity, but Rey really liked the You Pick Two deal, and the broccoli cheddar soup was her favorite soup _ever,_ apparently. So, they went there for lunch. Often enough that he’d figured out the salads weren’t half bad, if he made the appropriate adjustments.

“It’s not my fault you’re not a believer, Ben,” she muttered, taking a wide, open-mouthed bite of the fruit. When she spoke again, she did it as she ate, with absolutely zero sense of propriety or table manners. It was adorable. “I mean, really, galaxies upon galaxies, and you don’t think there’s anyone out there like us? We can’t be that unique.”

“If that’s the case, why haven’t they made contact yet?”

“Same reason _we_ haven’t been able to make contact, duh. It’s not simple arithmetic. We have to give it time.”

“I just think… I mean, it’s very likely that all of this — humanity, whatever — is just a big mistake that we managed to work in our favor.”

“You are _such_ a pessimist, Ben.”

“I’m _realistic_. There’s a difference.”

Rey rolled her eyes and smiled, the ease and fondness of it sending warmth through Ben’s body, from the tips of his ears all the way down. “Sure.”

A ping from Rey’s phone interrupted both of their existential trains of thought. Rey paused and looked down at her phone, a rush of color hitting her cheeks.

She cleared her throat. “It’s Snap… the guy that I met at the bar the other night. He, uh— he wants to meet tonight.”

Ben wasn’t sure how to navigate the very specific sense that the ground had fallen underneath him. It wasn’t like he thought Rey liked him, or anything, and he _definitely_ wasn’t going to make a move on her when she clearly didn’t feel the same way. But still.

He focused on his salad, making sure his next bite included a piece of chicken _and_ a crouton. “Oh?”

“Do you think I should go?” she met his eyes, and although he could have sworn he’d developed a robust catalog of Rey’s facial expressions and body language and what they meant, he couldn’t quite tell what she wanted him to say.

“Do you _want_ to?”

She swallowed and looked back down at her apple, picking at the skin. “I mean… I haven’t been with anyone in a while, I guess. I’ve always wondered if I should go out and do the whole ‘casual’ thing.”

Ben was thankful for the food in his mouth that gave him a chance to respond without revealing his disappointment. He was Rey’s friend and roommate and nothing more — whatever inappropriate thoughts he had about her in his own time were his fault, and his responsibility to deal with. Alone.

“Then you should try it out. Why not?”

“Oh. Well, alright. Yeah, maybe I will.”

Ben tried his best to smile. It took, admittedly, more effort than he had thought possible. “You’ll be fine, as long as you don’t make them sing to your plants.”

Rey shoved him from across the table, pointing an accusing finger. “You _love_ singing to my plants. Don’t lie. It’s a Sunday ritual.”

No, he didn’t. He thought it was bullshit — how was it possible for plants to respond to human singing voices? That made _zero_ sense, and Ben was a man of fact and reason.

But Rey, with her optimism that bordered on naivete, and her desperate desire for things to be _good_ and _magical_ all of the time, had infected him in her own way.

So he sang to her damn plants, in his unpracticed tenor, for her. Every fucking Sunday.

* * *

Ben hadn’t actually realized how bad things had gotten, though, until it was way too late.

Poe was bent over the stove, fluffing up his famous — according to him, anyways — scrambled eggs one late Sunday morning, when it all became unbearingly clear.

“Wanna go to the farmers market with me and Zorii today? Apparently her friend’s cousin’s roommate has a tent where she sells artisanal bath salts, or some shit like that.” When Ben didn’t reply immediately, Poe cleared his throat. “She thinks you’re cute. Or so I’ve heard.”

Ben froze over his coffee. “You’re just showing my picture to random people now?”

Poe huffed, his sleepy, unkempt curls falling into his face as he fixed himself a plate of food and sat down in front of Ben on the island. “Since you won’t get on Tinder or Bumble or literally any dating site, yeah. I’ve been showing your picture to random people. You coming or what?”

Ben shook his head. “Can’t. I’m driving Rey to the dentist for her root canal.”

Poe and Ben had known each other since they were children, a friendship that had originally formed out of convenience and proximity — they were neighbors, their parents were good friends, their backyards when connected made one huge backyard perfect for eight grade hijinx — and had endured the test of time. Ben knew him as well as he knew anyone, which is why he didn’t miss the twitch in his jaw when he said, “Alright, then.”

“What?”

“What do you mean, _what_? You can’t come, it’s fine. Where is Rey, anyways?”

Ben shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. “Not sure. I don’t think she slept here last night.”

Poe raised his eyebrows and chewed on his food, staring down at his plate.

Ben had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. “You’re clearly upset about something. Just say it, dude.”

Poe grabbed the sriracha bottle on the counter and drizzled the sauce over his food. “You _really_ don’t see it?”

“I’d have an answer to the question if I knew what _it_ was, Poe.”

A harsh groan escaped Poe, as if he didn’t quite want to say whatever it was, just as Rose emerged from her bedroom, a wide yawn spreading over her face. Finn trailed sleepily behind her. “He means you’re Rey’s fluffer.”

Ben nearly spit up his coffee. “Her _what_?”

“An emotional kind,” Rose rectified. “Like…”

Poe sighed. “It’s like you’re her boyfriend without any of the boyfriend parts. You take her to her fucking _dentist_ appointments, man. You guys sit down and coupon every week to try and get the best deals on frozen mac & cheese.”

“Rey and I are— I don’t need…” he gulped, his mind unhelpfully drawing images of Rey, her lithe body, her smooth lips, what they would feel like against his. Against _him_. It hadn’t been the first time he’d had uncouth thoughts about Rey, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last, but that did little to ease the ache he felt in his chest at the unwelcome reminder that he’d never _really_ know those things. Not in the way he wanted to. “We’re just _friends_.”

“That’s the _problem_ ,” Poe emphasized, his voice muffled by the eggs. “You’re too busy being her friend-without-benefits to actually get out there yourself.”

“Rey doesn’t owe me anything,” Ben narrowed his eyes. This entire conversation was so _fucked_ — couldn’t he be a good friend to the woman he was in love with, be heartbroken about it, and still just want to be there for her as a friend? “I thought we were past the whole ‘friend zone’ bullshit.”

Poe sighed, again. “Being her friend is fine — I’m her friend! So is Finn, obviously. But there’s a difference between that and what you guys are doing. You owe yourself the chance to, I don’t know, get out there! _Meet_ people. You need to set up _boundaries_. I love Rey, but...,”

“Look, she’s never been good at being casual,” Finn interrupted knowingly, drifting over to the refrigerator to grab a carton of Rose’s oat milk and pouring it straight into his mouth. “Rey has a lot of emotions, and she just doesn’t know where to put them sometimes.”

Ben stared down at his mug, something dark and uncomfortable twisting in his chest. If _Finn_ thought his relationship with Rey — or lack thereof, given the circumstances — was a cause for concern, that left few people willing to back him up. Him and Rey had been best friends for years.

“Here’s what I think. Friends just… help friends get laid sometimes, right?” Rose crossed her arms against the sink. “If you’re okay with it, I don’t see the issue.”

“The _issue_ is that Ben…” Poe chewed on his lip and shook his head. “You know what? Nevermind.”

It was silent in the kitchen for a few moments, nothing to be heard except the sound of forks against plates in their kitchen above and cars screeching against the road in the street below.

“It’s just something to think about,” Poe finally said, getting up to wash his plate. He met Ben’s eye then, with a gaze that made him feel naked and exposed, as though someone had placed all of his thoughts out on display for everyone to see. “That’s all.”

* * *

As time passed, Ben’s patience thinned, so much so that he could see right through it, past his genuine friendship with Rey down into the darkest parts of himself he wished he could ignore. Jealousy, anger, spite.

Rey attempted to keep up with an active sex life, meeting men in bars and online, through friends and coworkers alike. Some guys she keeps around for a few weeks at a time — Snap, for example, stayed in her orbit for a quite some time— while others were just one night stands.

Ben, on the other hand, continued to pine after her like a lovesick puppy, and he was starting to hate himself for it.

He’d gone with her to appointments and Craigslist meetups, to the mall where he’d helped her decide on a new outfit and to the couch, where they'd laid out on many a Sunday morning and watched whatever documentary struck his fancy that day. It was all unbearingly platonic — but each time her leg brushed up against his, or their hands brushed up against each other as they were grabbing popcorn, or she leaned in to make a particularly unfunny joke during whatever show they were watching, he had to remind himself of that fact.

They were napping on the couch one Saturday, the late afternoon sunlight lulling them into a false sense of security after their lunch, when they were both woken up by the loud buzzer that alerted them to someone trying to get into the loft.

Rey slowly rose from where she’d accidentally settled against Ben and leaned into the crook of his elbow, leaving it colder than it had been two seconds ago.

The buzzing only got faster the longer the two of them neglected to answer the door.

“ _Shit_.”

Rey seemed to have gained enough conscience and clarity — or just seemed to finally catch up on her phone’s notifications — to jump up over Ben’s body and run towards the door, her fuzzy socks slipping over the hardwood floor.

“Couldn’t you have at least called before you just came over like this?” Rey snuck a glance at Ben while he pretended to scroll through his phone.

“I texted you that I was in the area. I figured you’d seen it.”

The voice belonged to a man. Ben knew instantly that he didn’t really like him all that much.

“I was asleep,” she huffed, turning to look at Ben. “Hey, look, I’m sorry, but this isn’t really a great—,”

“Do you need help assembling the dresser? I’ve got some time,” the voice was cocky, too self-assured, and Ben had to hold back a deep groan. How did he get from napping on the couch with Rey to overhearing her talk to the guy she was currently hooking up with?

“I appreciate it, but I think I’ve got this. I’m not really in the mood to hang out tonight.”

“Are you ever? Rey, I think I need you to be clear about what you want from me…”

Their voices quickly became hushed. Ben couldn’t quite make out what the two were talking about, only that he seemed to grow more agitated the more Rey talked to this random guy he didn’t even know, until she managed to get the disembodied voice to walk away and dragged the large IKEA box into the apartment.

“Well,” Rey sighed against the closed door. “Almost thought he’d never leave. You up for building some cheap Swedish furniture?”

Ben’s agitation slowly multiplied, until he wasn’t quite sure how to get a grasp on it, Poe’s words coming back to him as clearly as though he were right next to him. Building furniture was undoubtedly a _couples_ thing to do, wasn’t it? Friends didn’t build dressers for each other. That implied living together, and coexisting, in a stronger-than-platonic kind of way. Which they clearly weren’t.

“Rey, I can’t. Do this anymore.”

“Huh?”

“ _This,_ ” he gestured between the two of them frantically, his temper rising. “It’s too much for me. I need… I have to set up some boundaries, or something. I can’t stand being your fluffer anymore.”

“Wh— My _what_?!”

“Not like, in a sexual way! _Obviously,_ god—,”

“Obviously? What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Not— not like it’s obvious that I wouldn’t— That’s not what I’m saying, I just mean—,” Ben ran a frustrated hand through his dark hair, his frustration rising. “Rey, it’s like I’m your boyfriend, right? I do all the things you’d do with a boyfriend, except then you go ahead and hook up with a bunch of guys, and it’s like, like you _need_ me to be there for you so that you can have emotionless sex or something—,”

“I _need_ you?! I cannot _believe_ — You’re the one that told me to! I—,” Rey shook her head, fury and disappointment and hurt each palpable in equal measure despite her much tinier frame. “You know, Ben, I might have expected this sort of slut shamey bullshit from Poe or something, but this isn’t the sort of thing I would have ever thought I’d hear from you.”

Ben couldn’t really see past the wall that had constructed itself in front of his eyes, a dam of hurt that had reached far past its capacity, spilling out until it had made a mess of everything in its wake.

“That guy just offered to help you build the damn dresser. You said no, turned around and asked _me_ to. Why?”

“This is about the dresser? Seriously?!”

“It’s about more than the dresser, Rey. It’s about how I— I can’t _be_ this for you. Not right now. Not like this,” he sighed, sitting on the edge of the couch and resting his arms on his knees. “If you want to hook up with guys, you are obviously well within your rights to do so. But I can’t fill the boyfriend role in your life once you’re done, I just can’t.”

In the silence that ensued, all Ben wanted was to come clean. To tell Rey that he couldn’t stand by and watch because he was in love with her, because it was slowly killing him, because he didn’t know how much longer he could go on — but the silence didn’t last for long.

Rey quietly dragged the IKEA box all the way to her room and shut the door.

* * *

If Ben had thought it was painful to be involved with Rey’s life, he was not at all prepared for how it would feel to be completely iced out.

Rey hadn’t spoken to him in a _week_ — if he entered a room, she’d go quiet. If Ben was brushing his teeth in the bathroom, she’d walk right past the open door and wait until he’d left instead of ambling up to the adjacent sink and making funny eyes at him in the mirror like she used to. They didn’t grab dinner, and they didn’t sing to her plants, and they didn’t talk. At all.

And all the while, the IKEA box sat in her room, unassembled. He knew, because she had a habit of leaving her door open, and while Ben Solo was a lot of things, he was not beyond letting his eyes glaze over the turquoise bedroom with the Goodwill curtains and OfferUp pillows, even if he pretended to be.

Poe, to his credit, had smacked Ben upside the head when he found out what he did.

“Are you an idiot, Ben? You must be an idiot. What is _wrong_ with you?”

“You told me to set up boundaries! This was me… trying to do that.”

“By slut shaming her, dude? Not cool.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Ben dropped his head into his hands, groaning deeply. “What do I do? She hates me now.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Poe shook his head. “She’s hurt. That was an asshole move.”

“Weren’t you on _my_ side about this?”

“Yeah, the side of you that needed to either go out and get some or man up and tell Rey how you _really_ feel. Instead, you chose neither, and now we all have to suffer for it.”

“What do you mean, how I really feel?”

“Cut the shit, Benjamin,” he said, standing up and putting on his jacket before work. “Find out a way to make things right or _you_ leave the apartment.”

“What? Why _me_?”

“You look like the personification of Death, dude. Rey’s the better roommate by far. Figure it out.”

How he planned to do that, well — it had taken him too long to come up with, given that it was the obvious solution.

Rey was a science teacher at the local elementary school, but Ben worked from home as a software engineer. This gave him more than enough time to take a few hours off of his day, spread out the various tools he’d need, and build Rey the dresser she wanted.

Seemed simple and intuitive enough. He was an engineer after all, even if his specific brand of it manifested in typing away at a computer for 10 hours a day.

He’d barely gotten to work laying out the different screws of various sizes when a few rolled on under the bed, which required him to lean over in positions that made him blush just to get organized again.

He’d gotten ten steps in before he realized he screwed something in backwards four steps ago, cursing himself when he realized he’d need to take it apart and start all over again.

He’d started the dresser three — three! — separate times when he went to get some water, and had to take his shirt off after starting the fourth time because the AC had stopped working for the second time in as many weeks. He’d have to reach out to the landlord about that one.

Ben was finally, _finally_ almost finished with the dresser — smooth white wood, with six rectangle drawers and sliding panels — when it seemed he’d let time get _too_ far ahead of him.

“Ben?”

He turned, slowly. Rey was staring down at him with a slack expression. “What are you…?”

“I was supposed to be done by now,” he muttered, staring down at the mostly assembled piece of furniture. “I swear, I was going to leave it here. I didn’t want to bother you.”

Rey shook her head, putting her purse down on the bed and sitting so that she could look Ben right in the face. “Why?”

Ben put the hammer in his hands down, brushing the sweat-slicked hair away from his face. “This was me trying to say sorry, I think. I was an ass last week. Hanging out with you, no matter what we’re doing, is always the best part of my day. I don’t want to lose that. Or you. Ever.”

Rey broke out a tiny smile, and _God —_ it should not have made Ben feel as though he were suddenly walking on air, but it did. After a week of nothing this felt like _everything._

“I think I should say sorry, too,” she said. “It wasn’t fair of me to lean on you like that, just because I don’t know how to have casual hookups.”

“No, Rey, listen, it’s really—,”

“Do you know why I didn’t want that guy to help me with the dresser?” Rey sniffed, staring down at her feet. “It was because I don’t _want_ those things with them. No matter how hard I try, I can’t bring myself to want those things with anyone else. Only you.”

Ben’s chest warmed at the realization that he hadn’t lost her, only to sour slightly once again at the reminder that that was all she saw in him. “I’m glad we can still be friends, Rey. I meant it when I said I didn’t want to lose you.”

“That’s the thing, though,” she kneeled onto the floor in front of him, fiddling with the closest screws. “I don’t know if I can go on the way we were before, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you don’t feel the same, given the fact that you have made it very clear you don’t see me this way, but…” Rey sighed, meeting Ben’s eyes. “I have to be honest, Ben. About how I feel about you.”

Ben’s heart was hammering in his chest, just under his breastbone, with a pace so erratic he thought it might jump up and fly away. “How you feel about me?”

She chewed on her lip, her skin turning a pretty, deep red. “I thought if I just kept you close, as a friend, it would be enough, and I’d get over you. But, clearly, that’s not working, so—,”

“Get over me?”

“Ben, will you _stop_ repeating everything I say? I’m embarrassing myself enough here by baring my soul and telling you that I have feelings for you.”

All the sound in the room and beyond rushed out of Ben’s ears. “You..”

“ _Don’t. Repeat. Me_.”

Ben swallowed, shaking his head. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

Rey started to stand, rubbing a hand over her eyes. “Listen, I needed to get that off my chest, but you clearly don’t feel the same way, so if you could—,”

Ben grabbed onto her wrist, holding tightly so that she wouldn’t move. “Wait. No. Stay, please. I… I do.”

“You… do? You do what?” Rey paused, obliging when Rey gently tugged her down once again.

“Rey, I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the day you moved in. I kept telling myself it was enough to be just friends, but clearly that wasn’t working for me, either.”

Rey’s eyes widened, and in the fading light of the afternoon outside Ben could properly appreciate the deep hues of green that played with brown, to create a color that was wholly original, and unique, and perfect. Just like her.

They were close enough that he could kiss her right now, if he wanted to. And, god, he _wanted_ to. He’d thought about exactly this sort of moment more times than he could count, the chance to tell Rey how he felt, and to press her warm lips to his, to feel her body press against his, and wrap his hand around her waist — it was so tiny, he just _knew_ he’d be able to encircle it with the palm of his hand.

And then, suddenly, he was.

He didn’t know whether she’d made the first move or he had, only that her lips were absolutely as soft as he’d imagined they would be, and the tiny, pleased sigh she let out when he circled his hand around her to bring her closer made him want to never stop kissing her, so long as he could keep hearing it.

Her hand came up to his chin, but the kiss remained soft, and slow, as the two of them gave in to what had been brewing for too long, what they had left ignored.

When they finally pulled away, Rey looked up at him, her fingers scratching at the stubble along his jaw.

“You’re telling me we could have been doing that the whole time?”

“We _should_ have been,” he said. “Now we’ve gotta make up for lost time.”

Rey chewed on her lip. “What do you think Poe and Rose will say?”

“I don’t really care, but I’m sure they’ll be fine with it. They better be.”

She hummed in agreement as she beamed up at him, pecking his jaw. “We are idiots, aren’t we? Letting this go on for so long?”

Ben leaned forward and kissed her again. “Not anymore, at least.”


End file.
